2007/03/01

Shrines of the machine

I don't read John Kass very often, but this column is great. On election day he went around to Daley strongholds on the Irish Catholic southwest side and asked Democratic machine workers where the shrines to their saints are. The "saints" are corrupt machine members who have resigned in disgrace, but who Daley continues to treat as if they were beatified. We get this classic exchange:

we walked up to the Daley machine captains, including one man who ate two slices of sausage pizza but didn't offer me any, and I asked them about the political shrines.

"Shrines?" said one. "You kidding? We don't got no shrines in this neighborhood."

How dare you pretend not to know! My back hurts, and I was hoping to buy a relic at the Shrine of Robert the Mute, and drink from his fountain, and so be healed.

"What?" asked the captain.

Robert the Mute. Robert Sorich [a top Daley aid and patronage boss, convicted in federal court last year].

"That's ignorant," said another Daley captain and friend of Sorich. "That's in poor taste. It's ignorant."